Trading Educators Blog

There are any number of reasons why a trader hesitates before a trade. The main one is lack of planning. Without a plan, there is no degree of confidence a trade will be successful, it's all wishful thinking. Unless they are outright gamblers, traders usually have a strong need to protect their assets and avoid risk. This is especially true for beginning traders. It can take a long time to build u...

I have to admit I do talk to myself at times, maybe even a lot, especially when I'm facing a loss. Let's say I'm down a bunch of points and it came as the result of a surprise move in the market. The temptation is to think, "I have to find a way to get it back." I hate ending the day down a bunch of money. However, if I give in to that thought, I am focusing on the loss and I'm no longer in the ma...

During ongoing activities, such as day trading, you have to learn how to pace yourself. This means alternating between times of intense activity with times of greatly decreased activity, times that require very little of your attention. These "rest periods" should take place when you do not have to quickly react to sudden market moves. This is hard advice to follow for some traders—paranoid, obses...

If you play tennis once a week against an opponent who plays tennis five times a week, who is likely to win? If you play chess or backgammon twice a year against someone who plays every day, who will mostly likely win? You don't have to start trading real money right away. Whenever someone goes through my mentoring program, there comes a time when I encourage the student to start paper trading bef...

​Almost anyone who wants to succeed needs to ask themselves certain questions before beginning to trade. Essentially, it is a matter of counting the cost BEFORE, not after you decide you want to pursue trading as a serious part of your life. What time period trader are you? How long do you feel comfortable holding a trade and how such financial risk can you comfortably assume on a one contract bas...

Once a trade is entered, there are two possible outcomes: Win or lose. Between the two is the breakeven point, and because it is in-between, it's psychologically significant. Losing is involved with fear and hope. Winning is involved with greed. When on the losing side of a trade, the breakeven point is a place that inspires hope. Being human we have a natural tendency to avoid risk and loss. When...

Many traders are smart enough to know that they will win in the long run by taking only the best trades, but become impatient due to the lack of anything happening. They forget that the long run can be "long". Taking only the best trades can be frustrating. They come along rarely, and even when they do there is no guarantee of winning with them. Long gaps occur in between. We can become angry and ...

Let's get one thing straight. Fear, for the majority of traders is a very real thing. You have it, I have it. Others have it as well. In order to become a professional trader, you must learn to deal with fear. The first step is to acknowledge that you have, which is what you have done. Once you admit to fear, you can begin to deal with it. When you notice the impulse to trade based on strong fear,...

Your trading goals and objectives must be possible to complete. They cannot be too abstract or too high. It is best to just execute a trade rather than being overly concerned with profits or achieving unrealistic performance standards.You must be able to intensely concentrate on what you are doing. While trading, it's vital that you have a detailed trading plan and control risk so that you can foc...

By being flexible I mean that over time, your trading philosophy will undergo changes. These changes are brought about because of external events (economic considerations, natural disasters, political events, etc.), and because of internal events, usually my own mistakes. My views change as economic, political, and technological changes occur both on and now off our planet. My views change as I se...

Sometimes in softball games, as a kid, they handed out the bats, balls and gloves, and there weren't enough to go around – so you had to sit it out. You had to sit on the bench and watch. The same thing happens in trading. Sometimes you don't get to participate. You must get used to the idea that sometimes you will sit in front of your charts for days or weeks, and nothing at all will happen....

I believe that to be a truly successful trader you have to have a true passion for trading. This is probably true for any field of endeavor. I believe that the people who do best are not primarily motivated by fame, glory, respect, or status. They are driven by the pure love of the what they do. Winning traders, similarly, have strong interests in the markets, and this passion is the driving force...

The main message I want traders to understand is how important the disciplined execution of a well thought out trading plan is in today's markets. Nobody knows for sure what a given market will do next. Having a plan of attack will allow you to successfully cope with the uncertainty that is an inherent part of trading. I think it makes good common sense to have a well thought out plan of attack fo...

In trading, hopelessness is not brought about by the situation, but rather by your interpretation of the situation. How you explain the cause of a bad situation accounts for how you cope with it. If you think, "I've always been incompetent and this is just another one of those times that proves how incompetent I've always been," you will tend to view the situation as hopeless and just want to give...

Inaction - not putting on a trade - is one of the greatest, most powerful tools you possess. Many large funds have to always be invested with at least some percentage of their capital. Moving into or out of a trade, without their own actions moving the market, is much more difficult for them. They are usually not able to quickly jump in and out of a market. This is an important advantage a smaller...

Don't get irritated or angered because you haven't put on a new trade in a long time. Whenever there is nothing to trade, don't trade. Accept it and stay on the "sideline." There will be an attempt by the "trading gods" to wear you down by giving you bad markets over and over, and for extended periods of time. This will happen, and it will happen on numerous, often successive occasions. Know this ...

​"The Rorschach test (also known as the Rorschach inkblot test, the Rorschach technique, or simply the inkblot test) is a test in which a subject's perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex scientifically derived algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning....

Pro Active and Ray Active are both wannabe traders, but their approach to trading is quite different. Ray is consumed with trading for profits. He imagines himself achieving great wealth, and thinks that when he amasses the riches he is after, he'll finally get the respect and recognition he always wanted from his wife, family and friends. He thinks, "If I can only make it as a trader, I can show ...

The death wish is resignation, fatalism, dejection, despair — in the face of "luck" repeatedly turning against us. The death wish is admitting defeat and shrugging our shoulders and throwing up our hands (generally after a string of losses) and not caring from then on whether we win or lose. The death wish is throwing money into the pot fatalistically, to punish ourselves. It is saying, "I might a...

Walk-forward testing is the first real step in testing any system on live data. A trader should be somewhat confident that the system or method can produce results in line with the hypothetical results received from back testing. At this stage of testing, it's important to watch a trading system or method run over live data for a period of weeks or months until a large, statistically valid univers...